Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Vehicles can be configured to operate in an autonomous mode in which the vehicle navigates through an environment with little or no input from a driver. Autonomous vehicles may include one or more sensors that are configured to detect information about the environment in which the vehicle operates.
Such sensors may include a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) device. A LIDAR can estimate distance to environmental features while scanning through a scene to assemble a “point cloud” indicative of reflective surfaces in the environment. Other sensors may include a visible light camera configured to capture image frames of the environment around the vehicle and/or a RADAR device configured to detect objects using radio frequency signals.